Circle of the White Rose Part 1 – VM Franck

A Two Part Entreaty by V. M. Franck
Part One – The White Rose Society

Is there such a thing as pure and perfect love, and if so, how do we find it? I’ve been told that within the heart of each of us glows a white flame. When the flame expands in pure and selfless ways, it symbolically emerges as a white rose, strong in the face of adversity, soft with kindness and motivated for the good. The heart activated in this way cultivates compassion, inclusiveness and the highest form of love. As this love and inner vision develop, the individual is not content to do nothing when a critical need arises.

Recognizing the critical nature of a need is key. When you, I and they do so, we can become motivated to serve the good. Flying on the wings of their inner vision some people risk their lives to restore that which is right. With the current rise of intolerance and bigotry worldwide, it is time to develop and activate our own inner vision and truly learn to see, like several groups, including the White Rose Society, did during WWII.

In the United States, as well as in other parts of the world, at present there are groups of people, who instead of working for the good, thrive on hatred, separatism, arrogance and ignorance. When they keep it to themselves it is their right to be as they are, but inflicting it on others is unacceptable. Allowed to flourish, it can have brutal consequences for millions, even billions. Are we going to allow it to happen again like it did under Hitler, a butcher who sent millions of people to death camps because of their religion? Will we allow a man, his political minions and our legislative branches to strip us of our humanity, our constitution and our country because they think they are better than us, that they are entitled? If we tolerate the rich inheriting the earth, they will destroy it and us. All life on the planet is at risk. This is beyond politics. For the clear-thinker and the visionary it becomes a love-embracing issue.

Following World War II some wondered why the German people did not try to stop Hitler, why his form of brutality was allowed to spread. Actually some of the German people did organize and oppose him. These included the Kreisau Circle, the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack Group, the Red Orchestra and the White Rose Society.

In June of 1942 under the leadership of a group of students and a professor at the University of Munich, the White Rose Society was born. Its purpose was passive resistance to the Nazi regime. Through distribution of anonymous leaflets and painted graffiti, the society engaged in opposition to the genocide. They wrote six leaflets and distributed a total of 15,000 copies mostly in southern Germany. By February of 1943 the Gestapo had arrested the core group. They, their members and supporters were tried by the Nazi People’s Court and sentenced to death or imprisonment.

According to my mother-in-law who lived in Yugoslavia at the time, Hitler was a charismatic speaker. He attacked international capitalism and communism saying they were part of a Jewish conspiracy. Under his racially motivated ideology, the Nazis killed 5.5 million Jews and millions of others he and his followers deemed sub-humans or socially undesirable. In total, his self-aggrandizement and poverty of soul killed nearly 53 million people. One man and his vision did this. One man.

WWII was seen as “the war to end all wars”. But it didn’t. After that there was the Korean War, the Vietnam Conflict, the Iraqi War, one in Afghanistan and one we are currently fighting in the Middle East and all over the world. Apparently a lot of people love to hate, even here in the U.S. which supposedly welcomes all manner of differences. The white roses within those spewing intolerance have withered beyond recognition. The white flame has nearly been snuffed out.

It’s happening again, the demonizing of people of color, the poor and those from countries who are not part of the white male elite. I’d hoped we’d grown beyond that. The growth, after all, was part of the promised Age of Aquarius. It didn’t work. Hatred, bigotry, lies and money recently put another Hitler into power and this time in the U.S.. One day he says one thing, the next he contradicts himself. It’s not fake news as he would have us believe. We watch and hear him say these things on television and then deny having said them. Trouble is, his behavior will annihilate us all if we don’t stand against it. As a pacifist, any effort I make will be accomplished by peaceful means.

How can we do that? Learn from history. Below are quotes from the leaflets distributed by the White Rose Society, the best of humanity at the time.

At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one’s fellow man; even at that time it was inwardly corrupt and could support itself only by constant lies. After all, Hitler states in an early edition of “his” book: “It is unbelievable, to what extent one must betray a people in order to rule it.”

If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body. The greater part of its former opponents went into hiding. The German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually to choke to death.

A quote from The Second Leaflet.

A state cannot be constructed on a purely theoretical basis; rather, it must grow and ripen in the way an individual human being matures. But we must not forget that at the starting point of every civilization the state was already there in rudimentary form. The family is as old as man himself, and out of this initial bond man, endowed with reason, created for himself a state founded on justice, whose highest law was the common good.

A quote from The Third Leaflet

Every word that comes from Hitler’s mouth is a lie.

A quote from The Fourth Leaflet

The illusory structure of autonomous national industry must disappear. Every nation and each man have a right to the goods of the whole world! Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of individual citizens from the arbitrary will of criminal regimes of violence–these will be the bases of the New Europe.

A quote from Leaflet of Resistence

For the entire texts of the Leaflets go to http://www.whiterosesociety.org/WRS_pamphlets_home.html

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) stated it this way:

… it is part [of the nature of tyranny] to strive to see to it that nothing is kept hidden of that which any subject says or does, but that everywhere he will be spied upon,…and further, to set man against man and friend against friend, and the common people against the privileged and the wealthy. Also it is part of these tyrannical measures, to keep the subjects poor, in order to pay the guards and the soldiers, and so that they will be occupied with earning their livelihood and will have neither leisure nor opportunity to engage in conspiratorial acts… Further, [to levy] such taxes on income as were imposed in Syracuse, for under Dionysius the citizens gladly paid out their whole fortunes in taxes within five years. Also, the tyrant is inclined constantly to foment wars.

Does any of this sound familiar relative to the current state in the U.S. and/or the world? If so, please do your part to help stop it, before we are all trapped and brutalized by the world’s latest Hitler. The first thing we can do in the U.S. is work toward voting his party out of power in 2018. We must let our representatives know we expect them to support our constitution and equality for all. We need to search out more ways to ensure our countries are places where people of all colors, religions, economic and educational status are welcome. It’s time to grow and engage our inner white rose.

The visionary does not just sit back and think love is warm and fuzzy and will solve everything just by radiating outward. The true visionary is a teacher determined to help others reach their highest good. The goal of visionary fiction dovetails the personal imperative to the help others see beyond their own perspectives. If we are bona fide seers, we cannot in good conscience withdraw and do nothing. It is up to us to make a difference, the difference or we are all lost.

The second and final part of this article is available to read from 16 April 2018 here.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Visionary Fiction Alliance.

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About the author

V. M. Franck grew up in a highly religious working-class environment. After working at a series of unsatisfying jobs, in her late twenties she earned a B. S. from Oregon State University. Thereafter, she worked with abused and disadvantaged children. A family tragedy changed her perceptions permanently. She wrote and published a book about its impact on herself and her family. She met Philip, who had always wanted to be a writer. They married and moved to the mountains to write full-time. She is currently writing her eleventh book. All but one of them are works of Visionary Fiction. She is also an exhibiting artist with her own online gallery.

Visit her website: whereartmeetstheheart.com

Her works of Visionary Fiction include:

– Tater’s Maters of Hootenanny Flats, The Maters Series – Book 1
– Resurrection Rose, The Maters Series – Book 2
– Final Entry, The Maters Series – Book 3
– In Ways We Can’t Imagine, The St. Germaine Chronicles – Book 1
– The Pacifist’s War, The St. Germaine Chronicles – Book 2
– Once Without Dying
– The Sword of Ruth: The Story of Jesus’ Little Sister